The viewpoint of a young man, full of energy and enthusiasm, is reflected in this excerpt from a letter written by Rutherford B. Hayes to his sister, Fanny Hayes Platt, on January 6, 1847:

"We have had a glorious flood here. The water began to rise New Year's day and by the night of the 2d [J.R.] Pease and myself could not get to our boarding house dry shod. Sunday morning the 3d old 'Algiers' (the side of the River in wh. I board) was afloat. I spent the whole afternoon building a raft to get over to this (the 'Babylon') side to see the fun. In the afternoon I and Pease got over. We chartered the finest boat in Lower [Sandusky] in company with Sarah Bell's husband and went to getting out the women, children, hogs, cows, and cats. In this way we spent part of Sunday & all of Monday sailing all the way to our meals-over Pease's garden fence and through the tops of apple trees beating Vermont snow drifts all to death. It was royal sport … of course the damage was something-though trifling in comparison to the losses of farms &c up about Tiffin …"

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